Who's excited about Windows Phone 8?

As time has progressed, performance is less of a concern. Even the low-end machines are pretty fast and most people's bottleneck is the network, not the computer. Design and small details now matter more.

But that doesn't necessarily result in fewer products.

The auto industry is said to have chronic overcapacity, but few to none of them seem to have the Apple trick of getting by with a handful of products.

Most of them seem to be working almost as if the objective is to have as many total models as possible (including relatively trivial variants, to be sure, but the overall model count seems large to me).

In the PC business, the same seems to apply everywhere but Apple. The truth is, the barrier to "another model" is fairly low; as long as the motherboard fits, you can style it and feature it numberless ways -- and so the vendors do.

Indeed, I would argue that things like "fit and finish" are just one more variable. The bigger outfits can do a better job; the littler ones tend to go for features because they have to. But, there has been a recognizable fashion market even in PC land for some time now; consider the ITX form factor, for instance. That's a fit-and-finish kind of market that even smaller vendors can get into. But, the variability there can be quite large despite the size -- to some extent, it's about the frames and covers.

Nonsense. I pointed out at least 2 people who have, editors at CNet and Laptop Review.

Pennies to the pound that they haven't reviewed every single PC laptop. For example, Notebook Review (who I assume you mean by Laptop Review) haven't reviewed the Razor Blade. Once again, you're making claims you can't back up.

I don't understand this comment. Which layout? It's different on the T420s and the T430s. What precisely don't you like about the layout on either one? The biggest complaint about the T430s is that the scattered the PgUp, PgDn, and PrtSc keys around. These keys don't even exist on the MacBook Air.

Its layout sucks too....

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As a long time IBM M Series mechanical keyboard user, I don't know how anyone could say the MacBook Air was superior to T420s if "most similar to an M series" is your goal.

Why would that be my goal?!

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No, they didn't. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's literally impossible to build a laptop as thin as the MacBook Air with a classic keyboard with decent keyswitches with decent travel. There's simply not enough room.

Um, yeah, they did.

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This is as thin and light as they ever got. I suggest you track one of these down.

X220's kind of chunky. X300 is 18.6 mm thick, and 1.5 kg or so (with the thinnest battery option). It's a little heaver than the MacBook Air, but still very much in the thin and light class. And it has a traditional keyboard with the old ThinkPad key layout. So don't tell me it can't be done. It very much can.

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The Thinkpad X220 is likely to be the thinnest and lightest laptop with the keyboard style you're looking for that will ever be made. It's going to be all chicklet from here on in, at least for thin and light laptops.

Chiclet keyboards are being done as a fashion statement, not a practical necessity. Lenovo appears to use the same or similar switches behind the keys, with comparable travel and feel. But you're missing the point, really; it's not that I want the traditional keyboard for the sake of its appearance. I want it because it had a far superior layout.

Copying the chiclet style, OK, whatever. Copying Apple's lack of keys, ditching things like the six-key page navigation cluster, ditching the back/forward buttons adjacent to the cursor, ditching a 'break' key... that's just colossally stupid. There's no advantage here. There's plenty of room on the X1 (for example) for the traditional layout--Lenovo has made 13" machines in its past that had the traditional layout, after all.

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Another option you might consider is getting a tablet with a USB port and using an external keyboard.

Copying the chiclet style, OK, whatever. Copying Apple's lack of keys, ditching things like the six-key page navigation cluster, ditching the back/forward buttons adjacent to the cursor, ditching a 'break' key... that's just colossally stupid. There's no advantage here. There's plenty of room on the X1 (for example) for the traditional layout--Lenovo has made 13" machines in its past that had the traditional layout, after all.

Apple are the arbiters of taste right? So yes there is plenty of space, but filling it with extra keys would be tasteless.

You made the demand that El Capitano do a comprehensive review of every windows laptop, and yet your example of 2 people out of the whole world, who are not people but groups of people paid to review laptops doesn't seem to include yourself.

El Capitano is claiming that the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air are the best laptops for every person on Earth and that all other laptops are inferior.

This assertion is just ridiculous and should be discounted on it's face, but I argued that he might be in a position to say which laptop was the best for the many users if he had done a comprehensive review of all available laptops, like the editors at CNet. Any yeah, I know a whole team works at CNet, that's my point. He's opinion of "the best" is based largely on ignorance of the alternatives.

Nulls wrote:

Even taking a more reasonable approach, technology reviews are not as influential as other products.

Reviews have more influence in technology than in any other sector, except media. More so than anything, relatively few people are qualified to evaluate technology products relative to the number of people that use them. And even if they are qualified, people that actually care about what they use tend to closely scrutinize reviews since they can't test everything personally. A great example of this is professional cameras.

There are some that tend to buy a brand and stick with it (ex. only buy Nikon DSLRs), but just because some users do this doesn't mean the vast majority of computer users do.

Nulls wrote:

With PCs having more models is not neccessarily a good thing as more models can confuse consumers especially when there isn't a very clear difference between the two.

I think there's certainly a middle ground that can include more that 2 laptops and 2 desktops without overburdening users.

Nulls wrote:

But I think this point for typical PC models it is alot like tech reviews in it doesn't have much influence on most consumers over things like price which I see as the major factor.

Getting the absolute best PC price often involves buying no-name computers directly from obscure Chinese OEMs. Few Americans do this. They tend to buy systems from major American OEMS like Dell and HP based on both price and availability.

I saw a review of the Lumia 920 from a french online magazine, that was made this month. The guy actually managed to click around in the UI a bit. If that was a final build that time (who knows), there's sure not much different to WP7.

It is widely expected that for end-users it will be not much different to Windows Phone 7. The changes for developers are bigger, but of course, developers can't actually make use of those changes because there's still no SDK.

It is widely expected that for end-users it will be not much different to Windows Phone 7. The changes for developers are bigger, but of course, developers can't actually make use of those changes because there's still no SDK.

Except after more than two years, you'd expect some more visible changes and refinements. For one, I'd have expected the UI to align more with Windows 8 and the Xbox, i.e. more colorful. Maybe I've the wrong expectation thanks to Android, but WP's UI isn't exactly a moving target. From what I've seen in the emulator, it looks like Mango, which looks like initial WP7.

As far as the SDK goes, I kind of expect it to launch a while after Oct 29th and device availability. Every time it leaked at some level and people with hands on took it apart. There's nothing to hide, so it has to be a pretty technical problem.

--edit: I mean, if the UI isn't somewhat/wildly different, why the hide and seek?!

It is widely expected that for end-users it will be not much different to Windows Phone 7. The changes for developers are bigger, but of course, developers can't actually make use of those changes because there's still no SDK.

Except after more than two years, you'd expect some more visible changes and refinements. For one, I'd have expected the UI to align more with Windows 8 and the Xbox, i.e. more colorful. Maybe I've the wrong expectation thanks to Android, but WP's UI isn't exactly a moving target. From what I've seen in the emulator, it looks like Mango, which looks like initial WP7.

Eh, it has the new Start screen. Windows Phone is, overall, better designed than Windows 8 (thanks to stronger guidelines and concepts, and a larger number of built-in applications) so if anything, I want Windows 8 to change to follow the phone.

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--edit: I mean, if the UI isn't somewhat/wildly different, why the hide and seek?!

I think MS was a bit too ambitious to think it could pull off two major product launches at the same time and expect them both to be a hit.

Windows Phone 8 is more of an incremental release then the major change that will build a platform. Especially when it looks like there are some issues with the platform that with each week its a no show just increases the likelihood it will be buggy at launch.

Which to the MS faithful a typical MS product launch may be great but if MS wants to compete with Apple and Google in the mobile market or with Tablets it is unacceptable. MS must stop expecting to get away with releasing unpolished buggy products that don't live up to the hype and fail to meet the expectations MS itself set.

MS has IMO set itself up for failure with Windows Phone 8 because there will be very few WP8 apps, so MS has to try to create a 3rd ecosystem using last gen's apps from a platform they just replaced. MS has to pull a bait & switch and hope that developers can load the store up with WP8 apps before many people catch on.

Which to the MS faithful a typical MS product launch may be great but if MS wants to compete with Apple and Google in the mobile market or with Tablets it is unacceptable. MS must stop expecting to get away with releasing unpolished buggy products that don't live up to the hype and fail to meet the expectations MS itself set.

MS has IMO set itself up for failure with Windows Phone 8 because there will be very few WP8 apps, so MS has to try to create a 3rd ecosystem using last gen's apps from a platform they just replaced. MS has to pull a bait & switch and hope that developers can load the store up with WP8 apps before many people catch on.

Which to the MS faithful a typical MS product launch may be great but if MS wants to compete with Apple and Google in the mobile market or with Tablets it is unacceptable. MS must stop expecting to get away with releasing unpolished buggy products that don't live up to the hype and fail to meet the expectations MS itself set.

I would say the lack of copy and paste for a long while is a little unpolished (I still find cursor placement to be awkward as well) along with how tombstoning is handled. It's a crapshoot whether the application supports putting you right where you were or a step or two back. And lest we forget the phantom data usage bug of last year.

Which to the MS faithful a typical MS product launch may be great but if MS wants to compete with Apple and Google in the mobile market or with Tablets it is unacceptable. MS must stop expecting to get away with releasing unpolished buggy products that don't live up to the hype and fail to meet the expectations MS itself set.

I would say the lack of copy and paste for a long while is a little unpolished (I still find cursor placement to be awkward as well) along with how tombstoning is handled. It's a crapshoot whether the application supports putting you right where you were or a step or two back. And lest we forget the phantom data usage bug of last year.

WP7 is quite remarkable in just how unbuggy it is for a first(ish) release. Updates work flawlessly, the OS literally NEVER crashes and NEVER stutters, ever. It's quick, it's smooth as silk. Just works.

Or at least my Lumia 800 has been that rock solid since I got it (others may differ). And oddly, it's the first phone since the early brick Nokia dumbphones that I can say that about.

While I think the iPhone is probably as solid, I only need to spend a few minutes with an SIII to note stutter and missed taps/swipes for example.

Eh, it has the new Start screen. Windows Phone is, overall, better designed than Windows 8 (thanks to stronger guidelines and concepts, and a larger number of built-in applications) so if anything, I want Windows 8 to change to follow the phone.

I'd argue Win8's guidelines make more sense on a phone than a desktop TBH. Edge UI and colour tiles would be more useful on a 4" screen than a 30" one. Also I like Win8's UI denouncing the stupid casing tricks WPx UI uses and sticking to sentance case.

While it wasn't a widespread issue, the infuriating thing is of course, AT&T being asshats.

Still waiting on updates for my AT&T TITAN... Meanwhile, my friggin Samsung Focus from Rogers is on 8773. Shockingly, I and other Focus users did not cause a complete apocalypse on Rogers' network. Who knew a mere software update doesn't break a cellular network?

I'll say it over and over again. The carrier fuck-you feature is going to be great.

In what way are they 'radical'? Resizing squares is about as radical as creating folders in iOS. And yet, every iOS hater claimed that was simply meh. At least creating folders adds great organizational and real estate benefits, unlike the more limited tile resizing. Don't get me wrong, WP needed that functionality, but it is hardly 'radical'.

His point is that it's as "radical" as the introduction of folders was to iOS. It's a nice organizational feature. Incredibly useful? Sure. Radical? No.

I mean, c'mon. It seems like a solid enhancement that makes WP much more flexible, but if you really think this is revolutionary/extreme/far-reaching/groundbreaking, Microsoft has managed to lower your expectations beyond belief.

What, devs couldn't use a large tile? The new start screen placing anything of any size in (almost) any placement on the screen is the radical change from the two column asymmetrical start screen. For the sake of argument, we're both right.

What, devs couldn't use a large tile? The new start screen placing anything of any size in (almost) any placement on the screen is the radical change from the two column asymmetrical start screen. For the sake of argument, we're both right.

The user had no choice on tile size whatsoever, which was a fucked up limitation to begin with, considering the paradigm MS chose in the first place. Tile resizing is not radical. It is adding an obvious function that should have been there in the first place two years ago in ver 1.0. What they really need also is user controlled folders/hubs, somewhat like iOS. Now THAT would be a killer feature that would start to make it competitive with iOS and Android, possibly starting to put it over the top.

Let me be very clear about what I think is the radical change: It is not just "OMG TILE RESIZE" it is the entire changing of the Start screen. WP8's Start screen is completely different from WP7's. I call that radical. The entire package is radical. Tile resizing alone is not radical.

Two years ago, there was little talk about tile resize. There were inquiries about it sure, but it only picked up after Windows 8 previews had tile resizing.

Let me be very clear about what I think is the radical change: It is not just "OMG TILE RESIZE" it is the entire changing of the Start screen. WP8's Start screen is completely different from WP7's. I call that radical. The entire package is radical. Tile resizing alone is not radical.

Two years ago, there was little talk about tile resize. There were inquiries about it sure, but it only picked up after Windows 8 previews had tile resizing.